20 CH 20: E-Rantel Incident
[4:00, E-Rantel]
"Damn it!"
"Fuck! They are endless!"
Sounds of bone-smashing can be heard accompanied by crispy curses of some people. The forces of E-Rantel have been holding the undead for many hours now, the sun still did not rise yet, It's 4 AM now.
The strategy they are using is to hold the undead with barricades, the City guards and soldiers and the assembled city militia are the ones holding, people that have been using swords and spears found themselves using a hammer or any blunt weapon since piercing weapons are useless against skeletons.
It's becoming a pushing game for both sides, really. Adventurers and Mercenaries joined every time there's a breakthrough of skeletons or if they need to push back the horde of unliving if they lose too much ground, barricades are still being made so if they are push back the first line.
Sometimes they will push the undead then build a barricade in the new frontline, fall back if they can't hold, then do a counter-offensive with the Adventurers and Mercenaries front liners, repeat.
Some adventurers are lookout for stronger undead in the top of buildings, Magic casters will help from time to time like fending off flying undead, but they usually focused on bombarding stronger undead with attack magic or debuffs to assist Gold, Platinum, and Mithril-ranked adventurers fighting stronger undead.
Paladins and Clerics are leading the common soldiers in fighting the undead, some mercenaries are also part of the common soldiers since they mostly lacked knowledge on fighting monsters and undead compared to Adventurers, but they are decent fighters since most of them are veterans.
Mercenaries are those who carry out missions solely for the high amount of money rewarded. They are usually seen frequenting around places specialized in selling weapons and other items to them.
They also participate during times of war. However, when peacetime arrives, mercenaries would often adopt the ways of a bandit or thief, attacking travelers without warning and looting their items afterward.
Particularly, during the Baharuth Empire's yearly wars with the Re-Estize Kingdom at the Katze Plains, only the knights from the Empire were professional soldiers. The Kingdom, on the other hand, made a contract with a large number of mercenaries to square off against the Empire. Once the war is over, mercenaries will no longer feel the need to fight for the Kingdom and most of them would revert back to being bandits.
Although mercenaries get hired on the job, they avoid visiting villages due to how common it was for other mercenaries beside them to be hired there. This was done so intentionally in order to avoid a confrontation and fight between former comrades of the same profession.
Fortunately, a band of well-trained and reliable mercenaries is known to be employed by traveling merchants. For starters, they were entrusted with the task of protecting the merchants while moving to a different destination. And there are a lot of Mercenaries in E-Rantel.
*Bam*
Miguel maced the head of the skeleton undead, in just one shot, the red glow on its eyes diminishes after the skull is broken by the force of the strike.
"Hit 'em on the head!"
"Yes!"
Miguel's shout is replied to by the people in the back, in the front of the files are Veteran Soldiers, Mercenaries, and a few Bronze-ranked and Iron-ranked adventurers.
Miguel is a mercenary, he's part of The Undefeated, a mercenary company formed in the Roble Holy Kingdom. They are numbered up to 146, most of them are young men who had finished conscription in their country and have a thirst for fighting and money.
Miguel is part of the company for a year now and even participated once in one of the annual war of the Kingdom and Baharuth Empire. He became a mercenary because he badly wanted to cross sword with someone, since his time conscription, he didn't experience a Demihuman attack on where he is assigned.
He's is no great fighter, nor he has talent. He's pretty average, but he could slay a difficulty 21 monster himself. So there's that. He wears chainmail with a chain mail hood, a breastplate, and a Barbuta helmet.
This the 3rd time their company exchanged with other mercenaries, they've been team tagging, even though the undead are weak, these are endless and also do not tire so they gotta be smart.
*Bam* *Bam* *Bam* *Bam*
He brought his mace high and swung it down to four skeletons and they fell down like puppets whose strings had been cut but are quickly replaced with another set of skeletons.
"Ha. Ha. These fuckers." He decided to hide behind his big square-shaped shield that hides his entire body to catch for breath. The skeletons hit their bodies straight to his shield, desperately trying to hit him with their bony fist.
Like the people beside him, as the frontliners, they are hiding behind their shields as they hold the push of the undead with their strength and the counter-push of their comrades behind them.
"One! Two! Three! PUSH!"
One of high-ranked of their company shouted, like in the Movie 300, The Battle of Thermopylae. They coordinatingly push the skeletons back, most of the skeletons have been pushed, and following the momentum, they stop hiding in their shields and everyone raised their maces and blunt weapon to strike the skeleton's heads.
*Bam* *Bam* *Bam* *Bam* Sounds of blunt weapons hitting the skeletons, and many of the unliving fell to the ground.
"Five paces! Forward!"
"OORAH!"
The mercenary assigned to lead shouted an order, and again they managed to gain more ground, Miguel raises the shield in front of him again. Bracing himself and in the incoming charge of the undead.
'Ah shit. Here we go again.'
.
.
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In a bird-eye view, the cemetery of E-Rantel is like an ocean of undead, but you won't see it if you don't have a [Dark Vision] though.
Thousands of thousands of this undead are flowing out, from gates of the cemetery to spread death to the living.
A cloaked woman with short blonde hair and delicate features, she has a cat-like appearance is looking at this beautiful sight and cannot help but smile as she remembers Khajiit telling her to not go out, but here she is now, in the wall around the Cemetery looking at the skeletons marching full of hatred against the living.
("Clementine! The ritual is not done, do not go out!") These words from Khajiit amuses her, but this is too boring, looking at him there, gathering negative energy to turn himself into something. She might even doze off there.
She had done too much for this mission, she's one of the Twelve Executives and she's not even allowed to have fun? That's wack.
"Sorry, Khajiit~ I want to play for a while~"
She said that as she looked to the line of people that the city has mustered that are now formed parameters against the undead.
"Hmm~ I want to add more in my collection~"
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.
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[3:00, Royal Capital of Re-Estize]
Re-Estize is a very ancient city. The seat of power of the Royal Family fora generations, the best to describe the city, the word "old" would fit in. Many parts of the city are undeveloped in the exception to this problem is the central road, as it is in the area of the upper class and thus readily maintained. The houses that were lined up side-by-side are described to be large and magnificent, radiating a feeling of wealth.
When walking farther and farther away out from the center of the capital, the roads or the streets will start to emanate dirty and a slightly foul stench permeating the air the closer one closes in.
As the Kingdom is low on finances, most of the roads are unpaved except the upper-class area. The roads to the Royal Capital of Re-Estize are not very safe to trend on, hence it requires several mercenaries to be hired for security reasons.
This is also the base of one of the two Adamantite-ranked adventurers team.
Somewhere in the high-residential district, the adventurer's team, Blue Rose lived.
Lakyus is described as a young woman with long blonde hair, green eyes, and pink lips that show a healthy gleam, but she's now in her pajamas sleeping soundly in her bedroom when she suddenly felt a presence in her room.
And she immediately became alerted and reaches for her sword...
"Calm down Evil boss..."
"Tia?! ARGHH... Ha~ I told you to knock on the door."
Lakyus relaxes and stops reaching on her sword after seeing the person who emerged in the shadow is Tia, her teammate. Tina has a slender body figure and dresses in light clothes and armor for the purpose of speed and stealth. Like her twin sister Tia, they both share exactly the same features and attire, the difference between them is the color of their ribbons. Tina's is red whereas Tia's is Blue.
The twins are assassins hired to kill her but now they are her teammates, she's still annoyed on this, she did tell them to knock.
"There's a commotion in the Palace..."
'E-Eh Palace?' Lakyus thought, why would be Tia be there? That's against the law of the Kingdom but Tia is not finished yet.
"...Not just in the palace, in Adventurer's and Magician's guild too."
"What happened?"
"I heard this from the Adventurer's Guild, there seems to be a huge outbreak of the undead in E-Rantel."
"Say what?!"
